YouTube suspends JREF account

The JREF’s YouTube account has been suspended. As of right now, there are no details. The JREF has yet to receive an explanation. Watch this video (if you want) then follow the instructions below to complain to YouTube.

60 Comments

i am curious if its more bogus DMCA claims (see: Thunderf00t) from activist IDers, creationists, sylvia browne bored at home, Pope Benny, the suspects list could go on and on…. None of the “Randi Speaks” that i have watched have any cp’d material. Aren’t they just the man himself talking in front of the camera? My shenanigans sense is tingling.

on the account: JamesRandiFoundation, the issue is with likely to be with the following videos:

Scams, Schemes, and Scoundrels
Scams, Schemes, and Scoundrels with James Randi 1/11 (9:52)
Scams, Schemes, and Scoundrels with James Randi 2/11 (9:20)
Scams, Schemes, and Scoundrels with James Randi 3/11 (9:51)
Scams, Schemes, and Scoundrels with James Randi 4/11 (7:27)
11 videos View Playlist Play All

I’m removing the following updates from the post… leaving them here. One other account being suspended may be linked or may not. We’ll just wait for more information, and right now worry about the JREF.

Randi and company are, more than any other skeptic organization I can think of, fully capable of a full recovery, and a blistering counter-attack. And that’s if they stood alone….they’ve got an loyal army of skeptic/geeky troops behind them.

2) trace what the removal reason was. If it was a bogus DMCA notice, then there are actually penalties for falsly filing thougs that can be leveled against people in court, (I think).. Of course, if there aren’t penalties, then we could start filling our own false ones…

Diligent in reporting them against legitimate copyright claims, yes. Against real usage violations, yes. Flagging them to annoy them to get even, no.

We don’t have any jesuses to save our souls from our sins… so we must act in a way that reflects the consciences our minds have given us. That means only responding with the most ethical and honorable of tactics.

Excuse me, but what exactly are people meant to complain against?
Does anyone know the reason the account was suspended? If not, then on what basis do you complain? Rumours of what you’ve’heard about’?

As skeptical thinkers, should we not wait for information before jumping to conclusions?

@chillzero: Several skeptic- and/or atheism-related accounts appear to have been suspended at once. That is suspicious. It is possible that Randi, and RSS, AND SkepticMedia did something to warrant suspension. So I am waiting before jumping to conclusions. I don’t know why the account was suspended. But I’m more likely to give JREF the benefit of the doubt than YouTube, given their respective histories.

I can see the suspicious nature.
However, someone elsewhere surmised one possibility is that perhaps the account had been hacked and used maliciously – in which case complaints to YouTube are unwarranted as the action is entirely appropriate. I just wondered on what grounds we are supposed to complain. I agree that JREF deserve benefit of the doubt, however I feel unable to complain about anything when I don’t know what the charge should be.

Even if the JREF were doing activities on their YouTube account that warranted getting banned, the very fact that we don’t know about them just goes to show how YouTube’s lack of transparency in these matters is entirely problematic.

@Elyse: Ahh.. you see, that depends. I actually have two axes to grind.

I’m deeply and fundamentally opposed to the entirety of the DMCA. If there is a legal way to abuse it, I actually want to do so just to make a point. I am also deeply opposed to the types of tactics that fundamentalist like to use.

In my mind, if there is a legal way to file bogus claims against creationist sites though… Well, for me this is the best of all possible worlds. I irritate the hell out of one of my ‘enemies’ by using another one. If I’m really lucky, the result would be a rising up of the fundies against the evils of the DMCA.

Hey, just letting everyone know that according to dprjones, if you re-watch the video around the 41 second mark an update pops up. It reads the following:

“My understanding is that a number of “complaints” (I’m assuming flagging) were made in relation to 2 of his videos. I received a message from the JREF on 31/3/09 indicating that the channel will hopefully be re-instated by the end of this week.”

As of right now it’s still suspended but this sounds like we should have an answer why it was by the end of the week!

Did a little more digging and thanks to fellow skeptic Kate Holden’s comment on my FaceBook page, the main compliant the caused the suspension came from Oprah’s production company HARPO over copyrighted material.

So we can thank Oprah’s mouth for silencing the JREF channel, like so many unsuspecting Chicken McNuggets before!

“Please restore the account of the James Randi Education Foundation. And please consider that your company is rapidly gaining a reputation as being too reactionary in responding to radicals wishing to suppress free speech. I can’t help but think that other video sites will gain a competitive advantage over you eventually if that persists.”

Never hurts to suggest they’ll lose viewers and money if they keep kowtowing to assholes.

And I could have been a lot more lurid, but there’s a 350-character limit. Cripes.

Atheist Media was suspended a long time ago in October for copyright complaints against 3 documentaries related to Islam. all three complaints were in the same week (almost 2 years after the channel was created) But it seemed like two of them were valid (C4 and BBC)

I did not try to get it back because most of the content on the channel was not original anyway(Mostly documentaries).

I guess now we try and find out *why* this happened in the first place. And I do want some answers. If this was an illegal DMCA takedown notice, then I expect some charges to be filed and people to either pay the Randi Foundation (and others) for their deeds – or go to jail.

This is, of course, only if it turns out that there were illegal actions going on. But – I guess we’ll find out.

That’s generally not the way the DMCA notice-and-takedown procedure works. There generally isn’t criminal liability when there is actually a legal question to be resolved. “Valid” (to use the terminology from a couple of comments up) means that the actual copyright holders made the complaint and believed the material to be infringing. There’s a good chance they were wrong, because copyright holders usually have a very conservative view of what constitutes fair use, but fair use is vague and the DMCA process requires YouTube to act in certain ways. See the chilling effects site.http://www.chillingeffects.org/

JREF basically either had to fight it by sending a counter-notification and prepare to go to court if the copyright holder decided to pursue the matter, or to remove the videos. They went with the latter, and I believe that the particular course of action is practical, but not at all ideal. The DMCA is often used in this manner. If you care, support groups like EFF, ALA, and Public Knowledge.